April 2019

HiSense launched its Series X OLED TVs in Australia towards the end of 2018, with an initial price tag of $3,500 AUD for the 55" model. According to a new report from Australia, HiSense's OLED TV sales were lower than expected, to the point that HiSense lowered the price to $1,495 to clear its stock.

According to ChannelNews.au HiSense is likely losing money on each TV sold. According to reviews, Hisense's OLED TVs are not as impressive as OLED TVs from LG and Sony, and consumers are preferring to buy LG's OLED TVs as Hisense is not perceived as a premium brand.

According to Digitimes, PMOLED display maker RiTdisplay has started to produce flexible OLED lighting panels, targeting the automotive, medical and consumer (home) applications.

For the automotive market, the RiTdisplay is apparently collaborating with Luminit, through its Taiwan-subsidiary Luminit Automotive Technology. RiTdisplay is holding 30% at LAT which is already starting to supply OLED lighting panels for automotive brake lights and started low-volume shipments in Q1 2019.

Acuity Brands announced that from now on it will work exclusively with OLEDWorks to expand its OLED luminaires product portfolio, targeting the architectural lighting market.

Acuity Brands has offered OLED lamps and installations for many years, using both OLEDWorks and LG OLEDs. Acuity Brands says that it has worked with OLEDWorks for years, and have found it to be the superior OLED technology in the market".

China-based Fortsense announced the world's first LCD on-screen fingerprint sensor technology. The company says that it has adopted deep learning neural network algorithms to overcome image artifacts and other issues that prevents regular under-the-display sensors to have clear fingerprint images through the LCD display.

Under-the-display sensor technology has been an advantage of OLED displays that LCDs could not overcome until now - although of course it remains to be seen whether the new Fortsense technology provides good recognition and its implementation cost - and how fast it can be commercialized.

Taiwan-based Luminescence Technology (Lumtec) announced that it has started to mass produce OLED lighting panels, targeting mainly the automotive OLED lighting market.

Lumtec has been developing OLED materials and technologies for many years, and the company has now accelerated its market strategy for OLED lighting, and vertically integrated the business under its "LUMLIGHT" business division.

The teardown experts at iFixit reviewed the Galaxy Fold and have taken it apart as they usually do with new smartphone - to find out why some of early review units failed so quickly (which caused Samsung to delay the launch of their highly anticipated foldable phone).

According to their analysis, the Galaxy Fold design has a weakness - and dust or other particles could enter the phone through the gaps in the top, bottom and the back of the device. This could create "bumps" on the display as the foldable display is pressed against the backside of the phone when fully folded. iFixit speculates that this could be the cause of the some of the reported display failures (another possible problem could be the removal of the protective top polyimide film).

LG Display reported disappointing financial results for Q1 2019 - with an operating loss of $113 million. LG Display warns that the whole of 2019 will fall short of expectations - due to high costs of its new OLED fabs, weak LCD panel prices and low adoption of its smartphone OLEDs.

LGD's smartphone OLED business still suffers from low yields and low fab utilization as the company finds it hard to secure design wins and compete with Samsung Display. Some reports even suggest that LGD is thinking about shutting down its flexible OLED smartphone business.

Sony officially announced the pricing and availability of its 2019 OLED TV range. Sony's flagship TV, the A9G, will start shipping in May 2019. The 55" will cost $3,399, while the 65" model will cost $4,499. Amazon already lists the new TVs. The 77" model, which will cost $7,999 will start shipping in June.

The A9G offers "consumer reference-quality image" and features Sony's X1 Ultimate Picture Processor, Pixel Contrast Booster and an automated calibration mode (including a dedicated mode for Netflix). The A9G features Sony's Acoustic Surface Audio - which means that the TV stand doubles as a high end speaker. The TV is based on the Android TV OS.

Samsung started shipping its flagship tablet the device, the Galaxy Tab S5e - Samsung's thinnest tablet yet at 5.5 mm. The S5e features a 10.5" WQXGA (2560x1600) Super AMOLED display with a 81.8% screen-to-body ratio.

Samsung's Tab S5e offers mid-range performance with a snapdragon 670 octa-core chipset, 4/6 GB of RA and 64/128 GB of storage (with a microSD slot). The 7,040 mAh battery provides up to 14.5 hours. The Galaxy Tab S5e is now shipping starting at $399.

Following the reports from early reviewers that the foldable screen in their Galaxy Fold devices broke down after a day or so, Samsung has decided to delay the release of its foldable smartphone.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Samsung wants to "fully evaluate the feedback and run further internal tests". Samsung will announce a new release date int he coming weeks. Samsung did not fully disclose its initial findings and does not give a full explanation to what went wrong with these review units. Samsung did, however, state that "Initial findings from the inspection of reported issues on the display showed that they could be associated with impact on the top and bottom exposed areas of the hinge. There was also an instance where substances found inside the device affected the display performance."